WITH GOD DAILY - "Gifts vs. Giver"

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I grew up believing what all modern people are taught: that freedom meant lack of constraint. Orthodoxy taught me that this freedom was no freedom at all, but enslavement to the passions: a neat description of the first thirty years of my life. True freedom, it turns out, is to give up your will and follow God’s. To deny yourself. To let it come. I... See more

But if we recover a sense of the primacy of God’s action in worship—that worship is a site of gracious, divine initiative—then we might better understand how and why worship is the center of discipleship. We should approach the sanctuary with a different set of expectations—that we will be met and remade by a living, active Lord.

James K. A. Smith • You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit

One way requires that we look at our imagination. Archbishop William Temple once said, “Your religion is what you do with your solitude.”120 In other words, the true god of your heart is what your thoughts effortlessly go to when there is nothing else demanding your attention. What do you enjoy daydreaming about? What occupies your mind when you ha

Timothy Keller • Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters

So when she saw a man was interested in her, she would silently say in her heart toward him, “You may turn out to be a great guy, and maybe even my husband, but you cannot ever be my life. Only Christ is my life.” When she began to do this, like Leah, she got her life back. This spiritual discipline gave her the ability to set boundaries and make g